Flixton Abbey Farmhouse, Flixton, Suffolk

Summary

Flixton Abbey Farmhouse is a multi-phase house and service wing incorporating ruined medieval portions of Flixton Abbey and principally dating to the late C16 and early C17.

Description

A multi-phase house and service wing incorporating ruined medieval portions of Flixton Abbey and principally dating to the late C16 and early C17.

MATERIALS: the building combines rendered flint and brick walling with timber framing and has roofs covered in black glazed pantiles. Some parts of the timber frame are in-filled with wattle and daub.

PLAN: the east wing retains vestiges of an original lobby entry plan but has since been altered. The plan separates the high status areas at the east of the building from the service areas at the west end.

EXTERIOR: the building faces south and is two storeys high with pitched roofs terminating in gables. The west wing has a ground floor of painted brick with a single casement window right of centre. The first floor is timber framed and has a large casement of 12 panes. At its east end is an engaged chimney with four diagonally-set attached square shafts with corbelled heads. This wing stands forward of the other and its return elevation is largely blank except for two small windows. The east wing is more formal and appears symmetrical, though it is missing at least one bay at the east end. There is a central chimney stack, and a two-storey porch with the Adair monogram within its gabled upper storey. There are casement windows to either side of the porch at each floor, and an additional doorway to the left hand side at ground floor.

The east elevation has no fenestration. A pentice board protects an exposed first floor ovolo moulded tie-beam indicating the former continuation of the house for at least one further bay. There is a blocked window at ground floor. The gable has some incised render and there are plain barge boards.

The north elevation has two ground floor lean-to extensions against the east wing, and one larger two-storey lean-to against the west wing. There is one leaded casement window on the east wing proper, at the right hand side. The left hand lean-to has three plank doorways. The central lean-to is slightly taller and has one large casement window with external panelled shutters and one small casement. On the right hand side the two-storey lean-to has a large externally-shuttered window with panels, a small dormer with elaborately carved barge boards and a finial, an external porch with side access, and at the west end unglazed slatted vents to the dairy and cheese loft.

The west elevation is entirely faced in brick except for the rendered upper part of the cheese loft. The gabled wall of the west wing is three storeys high with an attic, indicating the lack of a consistent floor level within, and there are five pattresses for iron tie bars. The ground floor is thicker with English bond brickwork and has two brick buttresses built against it, between which are two small windows. There are casement windows centrally at the first and second floors and an unglazed slatted vent at attic level. The upper storeys and dairy extension (to the left) are walled in Flemish bond brickwork. The dairy has a casement window at ground floor and a slatted vent in its first floor cheese loft.

INTERIOR: the east and west wings are separated by a mid-C19 stair hall inserted into the east wing. The staircase has an open string, stick balusters, newel posts, a lincrusta dado and it dog-legs through a half landing. It interrupts original ovolo moulded beams likely to date from the late C16 or early C17 at ground floor. Similar beams can be found in the other rooms of the east wing at this level. Other features of interest in this area include four-panelled C19 doors, a mid-C19 encaustic tiled floor in the lobby entrance, pine floors, and late-C19 or early-C20 fireplaces.

The upper floor of the east wing is lower than the west wing. It was remodelled in the C18 and retains six-panelled doors with their original hinges, cupboards and hob-grates from that period. Above the fireplace in the eastern chamber is a highly decorative mantel beam, probably early C17 with apotropaic taper burns. Its surface has been stripped back and keyed so that it could be covered in plaster at a later date, probably in the C18. The only decorative beams at first floor level are found in this eastern chamber.

The ground floor of the west wing is of a very different character expressive of its function as the service end of the house and as a functioning part of the farm.

Access to the dairy is entirely separate, via the north porch. It has a screed floor draining to the centre, timber work tops around the perimeter, and vertically hinged shutters. A ladder-stair leads to the cheese loft which has a pine floor, perimeter shelves and similar shutters.

The west wing proper is reached through a stable door and a pamment floored hall. There is one large reception room in an extension on the north side, it contains some reused C18 fabric alongside C19 doors and a mid-C20 fireplace. The original kitchen is in the older phase and has C16 or early C17 timber framed walls on high brick plinths. The floor is paved with pamments. The bressumer of a large open fireplace survives but infilling has created secondary features within it, including two C19 bread ovens (one now removed) and a copper boiler (still in situ). An older, perhaps C18, brick-built bread oven stands to the right, adjoining a void that contains the remnants of a small staircase and a blocked C17 timber mullion window frame. Other historic service areas include a pantry with a gault brick floor, and a scullery with its own lead water pump and a staircase (late C19 or C20) to the first floor. Blocked internal windows suggest that the scullery and kitchen used to communicate or borrow light.

At 'first floor' the west wing has a highly vernacular character with few rooms existing at the same level as their neighbours. Some internal walls have panels of wattle and daub and the ceilings are covered in lath and plaster. There is a tall central windowless volume from which the other rooms can be reached and a substantial chamber over the kitchen that may have had independent external access historically, suggested by a blocked door on the south wall. At the south-west corner of this kitchen chamber is an upper room that can be reached via a flight of stairs that has a curious hinged step with a viewing or ventilation hole underneath. The west wall of the lower-first floor room changes thickness and includes a small cusped niche.

A spiral staircase rises into the roof void on the north side of the very large chimney stack. The void is vast and appears to date from the C17 but may have reused older fabric in its construction. There are two levels of butt purlins and a third upper clasped purlin pegged with wind braces. Beneath the upper and lower collars it is possible that an additional storey once existed, the mortices of floor joists remain in the lower collars and the rafters were once ceiled with laths. The west wall has a single large un-glazed window or vent. The pantiles on the north side of the roof are laid on top of reed and it is possible that this part of the building may have been thatched originally. There is an open brick fireplace on the east wall of the roof void, probably C18, and in a small chamber to the right hand side is a blocked east window.

History

Flixton is an ancient settlement, recorded in the 1086 Domesday survey when the manor belonged to the Bishop of Thetford. By 1258 ownership had passed to Margery, widow of Bartholomew de Creke, who founded a nunnery dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St Catherine. Female religious houses were rare in medieval England, only 153 are known to have existed, and the actual locations of as few as 100 are known. Flixton Priory was one of only three belonging to the Augustinian Order in Norfolk and Suffolk.

The priory was badly affected by the Black Death and from the mid-C14 its revenues remained at around half of its previous level. By the early C16 there were fewer than 10 out of a maximum 18 nuns in the community. The foundation survived an attempt at closure by Cardinal Wolsey but was ultimately suppressed in 1537 when the priory and its possessions were granted to Richard Warton. The last prioress was Elizabeth Wright.

The moated precinct within which the priory stood, the fishpond on its south side, some standing remains and the earthworks of some buildings have survived as part of the scheduled monument that today covers the whole of the site. They illustrate the decline of the monastic buildings which were robbed of their fabric for re-use elsewhere. The priory church is likely to have stood on the north side of the precinct, roughly where Flixton Abbey Farmhouse now stands.

The farmhouse is likely to have been developed by the Tasburgh family who acquired the site soon after the dissolution but set about the creation of a larger country house at Flixton Hall (demolished 1952-1953). Their successors, the Wybarnes, sold their land in the village to William Adair in 1753 whose descendants remained at Flixton Hall until 1950. The Adair monogram can be seen on the south elevation of the farmhouse.

Developed in the aftermath of the closure of Flixton Priory, the Abbey Farmhouse incorporates massive medieval flint walls at the ground floor of its wide western wing. This is very likely to be part of the medieval monastic church and is an indication of its original size.

The building has two distinct characters. The eastern wing of the building was newly constructed in the late C16 or early C17 as a three-cell, two storey building with a timber frame resting on a ground-floor plinth of flint. The two-storey porch on its south-side likely contained a 'closet' (a small private room or study) at first floor and is one of many features indicating that this wing had high status at the time of its construction. Inside, the presence of heavily moulded beams, a multi-flue chimney with an elaborately carved first floor mantle-beam, and the close studding of the timber frame are all indicators of taste and status. The easternmost cell of the building was later demolished, possibly in conjunction with an early C18 remodelling of the interior which concealed the original carved elements and timber frame. At that time, new fireplaces were installed, doors replaced and the ornate first floor mantlebeam was cut back to be plastered over.

The western wing of the house, by contrast, has a complex vernacular character. Constructed over the remains of the monastic church it is of a very substantial scale. It has been altered and adapted repeatedly. Its presiding character today is of the C18 and C19 internally and it may have been remodelled at the same time as the higher status eastern wing. At that time it evidently functioned as the service wing, and incorporated all the functions necessary for the life of a Suffolk farmhouse, including a substantial kitchen, pantries and a scullery, and has a separately accessed dairy with a cheese loft. There is an extremely large roof space accessed via a spiral stair constructed around 1600, lit by one window and heated by a (probably) C18 fireplace.

On the north side of the house a series of mid-C19 ancillary lean-tos have been constructed, including the dairy at the west end, and a coal store which blocked an original entrance in-line with the eastern chimney stack.

The house has undergone very little alteration since the end of the C19, though some early C21 modifications to the ground floor of the east wing include the laying of a screed floor, the in-filling of a low-level store room, and the introduction of a bathroom (left unfinished at the time of assessment - January 2022).

Reasons for Listing

Flixton Abbey Farmhouse is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the incorporated fabric of the medieval monastic church within the west wing;
* for the polite architecture of the late C16 or early C17 east wing, including the close-studded timber frame, the two-storey porch with upper closet, and the elaborate ovolo moulded beams of the principal rooms;
* for the varied and highly vernacular architecture of the west wing, including the exceptional craftsmanship of its roof;
* for the high degree of surviving internal features of interest.

Historic interest:

* as the product of a long period of evolution from the medieval period through to the C19, the development of which can be read in its fabric;
* for the rarity of its fabric as part of a medieval Augustinian nunnery;
* for its relationship to events and figures of national interest, including the suppression of the monasteries, the Tasburgh and Adair families;
* for its attributes of regional distinctiveness, including its building materials and the survival of the dairy and cheese loft.

Group value:

* for the strong intrinsic relationship between the listed building and the scheduled monument on which it stands.

External Links

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